Bloomberg vs. the Koch Brothers

The Democratic Party wants the 2014 elections to be about anything and everything except ObamaCare. The depths of Hope and Change were plumbed in 2008, the War on Women was exhausted in 2012 and that leaves only the Koch Brothers.

Senator Harry Reid, facing the end of his time as Senate Majority Leader, has decided to bet the farm on the Koch Brothers. His Senate Majority PAC (formerly Commonsense Ten, really “Keep Harry Reid Majority Leader”) is trying to protect Senate Democrats who are hated in their own states for voting to drive up the price of health insurance while cutting Medicare by accusing their Republican opponents of being pawns and puppets of the Koch Brothers.

One ad already running in Louisiana tells voters, “Out-of-state billionaires are spending millions to rig the system and elect Bill Cassidy. Their goal? Another politician bought and paid for.”

And who is funding the $3 million Reid ad campaign denouncing out-of-state billionaires for spending millions to influence politics? Is it grass roots Louisiana voters or local kindergarteners pitching in their pennies to stop the rampage of the billionaires?

The single biggest donor to Senate Majority PAC is an out-of-state billionaire. Michael Bloomberg donated $2.5 million this year. Bloomberg’s priorities of banning guns, soda and salt are more at odds with the average Louisiana voter, who overwhelmingly supports the Second Amendment and eats what he likes no matter how much salt and sugar it has, than those of the “libertarian-minded” Koch Brothers.

Mainstream media stories about the Senate Majority PAC ad blitz don’t bother to mention that the clamor over “out-of-state billionaires spending millions” is really a case of the 16th richest man attacking the 6th richest men in order to keep the Senate exactly the way it has been for the last seven years.

If Bloomberg had donated $2.5 million to a Republican PAC that was using it to air ads blasting Democrats as puppets of George Soros, every news story about the ad blitz would lead with the absurd hypocrisy of one billionaire funding attacks against another billionaire for trying to influence politics.

The choice not to report this reveals that the biggest problem with politics isn’t the undue influence of money, but the undue influence of media.

Bloomberg, who has his own media outlet, has a very distinct agenda and it isn’t a libertarian-minded plot to “take over the government and leave you alone.” His $2.5 million donation to help Harry Reid cling by his fingernails to his position isn’t being done out of the goodness of his heart.

Bloomberg isn’t a party donor, he’s an issue donor. And his biggest issue is gun control.

46 percent of Louisiana residents own a gun and Proposition Two, which made it the state with the strongest backing for the Second Amendment, passed by 74 percent. Louisiana voters deserve to know that an out-of-state billionaire fanatically obsessed with outlawing guns is trying to rig their system.

“The mayor intends to keep his wallet open after he leaves office to influence national policy around issues like guns, education and marriage equality,“ a Bloomberg adviser said.

Louisiana voters oppose 2 out of 3 of those policies.

Other Senate Majority PAC donors include billionaire hedge fund manager James H. Simons, media mogul Fred Eychaner and sleazy Hollywood tycoon Harvey Weinstein. Simons and Weinstein live in Manhattan and Eychaner in Chicago. Weinstein, like Bloomberg, is a gun control fanatic.

Before Harvey Whittemore was sent to prison for illegally funneling $130,000 to Reid’s re-election committee, Reid had worked to move Whittemore’s Coyote Springs project forward, intervening for him with Federal agencies in ways that raised eyebrows even among his own allies.

Considering how many favors Senator Reid has done for Chinese interests with American money, it was surreal to see him denouncing the Koch Brothers as “un-American” on the Senate floor. If anyone is un-American, it’s Reid who has proven that he’s willing to divert millions to China if his sons get a piece of the action.

There is a case to be made for moving money out of politics, but Reid is the worst possible politician to make it.

Senate Majority PAC inveighs against the influence of money on politics at the service of a man who will do anything and everything for anyone as long as they spell his name correctly on the check.

The Senate’s Manchurian Candidate accused the Koch brothers of corrupt foreign practices based on a debunked Bloomberg article. Reid claimed that they bribe foreigners to get contracts. Meanwhile foreigners bribe Reid to get contracts.

“Is even one of you — is even one of you — willing to stand up and disavow the Koch brothers’ agenda?” Reid demanded.

The question is whether Senator Reid will disavow the Bloomberg agenda?

“I’m trying to find a Republican who will raise an objection to two brothers trying to buy America,” Reid said.

Is there a Democrat who will object to the attempts by Nazi collaborator and wanted financial criminal George Soros to buy America? What about Fred Eychaner and Steve Mostyn?

What about Imaad Zuberi, a top figure in the Syrian Sunni opposition, who bundled at least $500,000 for Obama? What about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, whose dishonest political ads are setting new lows even by the already low standards of national politics?

The only time that Democrats raised any objection to Bloomberg’s attempts to buy the political process outright was when he began to oppose Democrats in red states unless they buckled on gun control. Then Reid’s people met with Bloomberg’s people and begged the billionaire to stop targeting them.

The only time that Reid objects to Bloomberg buying America is when it hurts Democrats.

“I’m not afraid of the Koch brothers,” Reid boasted. Instead Reid is afraid of Michael Bloomberg.

“I believe I am on the side of the American people,” Reid said. But the American people don’t pay Reid. Billionaires like Bloomberg do.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

JaneSmith100

The ads need to go over this fact that “Senate Majority PAC” is a Bloomberg machine pac. Someone PLEASE get on the ball about this. I saw this earlier btw – I looked up who this pac was & saw Bloomberg’s name.

Daniel Greenfield

Instead of playing defense, play offense.

Habbgun

Yes….but these are Republicans we are talking about. Not people comfortable on offense but lousy at defense. If they were football coaches they would be in a prevent defense the entire game.

Infidel

“The Democratic Party wants the 2014 elections to be about anything and everything except ObamaCare.” With the creatures running the Stupid Party, Dingy Harry doesn’t need Bloomy’s money.

BagLady

I have not read anything from the GOP on how they plan to fix the many problems caused by the increased suction of wealth ever upwards.

Daniel Greenfield

Diminish the size and power of government and it’ll get rid of the corruption and money in politics that is responsible for much of income inequality.

BagLady

Of course I agree with you totally on the reduction of government and the obvious knock-on lessening of financial corruption.

However, I believe you are far more for a free-for-all battle in an uncontrolled market where, inevitably, only the rich will benefit.

I look forward to the day when the rice farmer breaking his back all day in the hot sun actually reaps some reward from the fluctuating market prices whilst bringing life saving food to millions of tables.

reader

Rice farmers tend to break their back in socialist if not outright communist countries. And, in those countries, they have no hope of any lasting reward.

BagLady

Production in order of capacity: China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Burma, Brazil and Japan.

Of these only Vietnam and China are Socialist.

Daniel Greenfield

The rich benefit from locking in wealth. They can do so through cartels and monopolies, which there were legislative tools against, or they can do so through government monopolies. That’s where we are today.

A free market destabilizes established wealth more so than any other method. It’s unfair and there are people who are left out, but the ‘fairer’ alternatives end up being more unfair.

The US had a pretty decent balance, pitting democracy against oligarchy, to keep everyone on their toes. Now it’s oligarchy all the way to the bank.

nimbii

Absolutely agree Daniel.

I think Thomas Sowell said that business hates capitalism because every day it’s a throw of the dice. They want those juicy government contracts that are a sure thing.

Wall Street financed the Bolshevik revolution in exchange for exclusive contracts for mining, manufacturing and access to the Russian markets.

Lenin then reportedly quipped that a Capitalist will sell you the rope on Friday that you will use to hang him on Sunday (or similar). Sure enough Communists were in the Roosevelt admin a decade later…

Daniel Greenfield

Big business certainly. Established corporations with dominance and limited room to expand or grow find it easier to lobby for regulations than to actually compete.

nimbii

So true,

I used to work in outside plant telephony (pole line hardware and the black boxes on phone lines). We used to write configuration specs for smaller phone companies that included our products and excluded our competitors. Sometimes the phone companies accepted it sometimes not..

Daniel Greenfield

It’s evolution. All life seeks a niche. That’s true of economic life as well. The free market promotes economic evolution

philbest

You are onto it. Nowhere near enough people are. I made a long comment above before I saw your one here. We are very much in agreement.

I read something that I wish I could find again, to the effect that the top 10 wealthiest people/families in the USA churns rapidly every decade, whereas in Sweden it has hardly changed for more than half a century. Guess why the wealthiest people prefer a cosy symbiosis with Statist government, to continued free market competition?

bigjulie

As in the money pouring into Dem coffers or Republican “Establishment” coffers in order to ensure at least a skeleton crew who will be powerful enough to continue the power of money in government operations, and thus the power and influence in government by those who have the money.

philbest

Quite; that is what I am referring to. The Democrats get by far the most, and by far the most from the rent-seekers rather than the main street wealth creators. The Republican establishment is also guilty but not nearly as much.

It is only the libertarian wing of the Republican Party that has any integrity at all. It is a wonder that it gets any funding at all, and it is incredibly noble of any wealthy people to actually support free market principles via donations to free market politicians and think tanks and movements. That is an act of genuine gratitude to the political culture that provided them with their own opportunity to succeed.

Even in Europe and the UK there is far less “new wealth” than in the USA, because connections count for so much more in Europe. No Silicon Valley in Europe. Of course the Silicon Valley new rich might try and turn into oligarchs; the constant protection against this tendency is always government that upholds and protects free market principles. It is a constant vigilance thing. And it is the libertarians who are holding the ground in the US right now.

Daniel Greenfield

Barons like feudalism

Rebecca

So do Marxists.

MLCBLOG

Brilliant and clearly explained. simple. thank you. I am a huge fan of the virtues of the free market as our best shot.

truebearing

Great response. Nothing benefits the producers more than a free market.

lyndaaquarius

so clearly explained. thanks.

objectivefactsmatter

The modern trick is to use the stealth approach and present your program as altruistic so that your crony capitalism can be seen as “socialism” or something like the false promise of socialism under a different (more acceptable) label.

nimbii

One of the first things Mao did was send the existing political class to the fields to know what work was.

objectivefactsmatter

I’m not sure he was good at math either.

BagLady

The Khmer Rouge did the same, only they didn’t give them shovels.

nimbii

They gave them graves.

BagLady

Amen. Not so stark as that strip of land that is Vietnam and just one long graveyard.

bigjulie

You are not talking about any rice farmers that I know of. The rice farmers I know till by mechanization, seed by mechanization, irrigate by mechanization and harvest by mechanization, in between visits to their doctor who is telling them to get more exercise and lose 20 lbs for their heart health! Maybe in SE Asia, but not here!

objectivefactsmatter

“Maybe in SE Asia, but not here!”

That’s exactly what she’s talking about.

bigjulie

Not at all specified in the post I was answering

objectivefactsmatter

That’s why I confirmed what you said.

BagLady

Is your ‘rice farmer’ called Mr Monsanto by any chance?

bigjulie

No!

Drakken

No matter how many times you goddamn communist try communism, it always ends up with stacks of dead bodies.

BagLady

If you have nothing to say, why speak?

nimbii

It’s there religion.

They’re going to make the world better and this justifies their in-between mess.

Communists have never provided any guide for how to create wealth, only for how to redistribute other people’s money, not their own of course.

That is why they always fail, unfortunately to your point.

Drakken

No matter how many times you goddamn communist try communism, it always ends up with stacks of dead bodies.

Rebecca

The rice farmer?

objectivefactsmatter

“However, I believe you are far more for a free-for-all battle in an uncontrolled market where, inevitably, only the rich will benefit.”

Sure. Karl proved it. But Karl was an idiot so you’d better go back to school.

objectivefactsmatter

“I look forward to the day when the rice farmer breaking his back all day in the hot sun actually reaps some reward from the fluctuating market prices whilst bringing life saving food to millions of tables.”

I’m not sure how to make sense of that statement. The way to reap rewards is to sell your products. The way to make things easier is to revise your methods. It’s up to him, not me or you. Unless you want to go and help him yourself.

lyndaaquarius

essentially that’s the TEA party platform. Makes so much sense.

Gislef

What have you read from the Democrats on how they plan to fix the income inequality that has increased during Obama’s terms in office?

BagLady

That is not an answer. It’s yet another question.

nomoretraitors

which remains unanswered

MLCBLOG

..and by its very nature cannot be answered…it is largely rhetorical, therefore not a real question, and only used for the purpose of promoting certain agendas.

Gislef

It’s a question to determine your interest in the answer. Otherwise, why focus on the Republicans? They only control one of the three legs of the tripod of legislation.

BagLady

First the answer and then my interest in it. That’s the usual logical process of a question. As you say there are three controlling parties involved in the management of the country. I just happened to ask for the plans of the Reps.

objectivefactsmatter

You didn’t actually ask a question that could be answered objectively.

What the RP proposes is to diminish crony capitalism. They’re just a bit scared or corrupt to follow through.

BagLady

Scared of what or whom?

objectivefactsmatter

Losing elections.

nomoretraitors

They don’t have a plan because they know it can’t be done since we have (and have always had) ABILITY inequality. Furthermore, the Dems know this and don’t care. It’s only a tactic used to seduce the weak and simple-minded.

philbest

It is the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, not its establishment, that would do more to end the upwards wealth transfers than anyone else.

There is a reason it is increasing under Obama; that is the nexus between the Federal Reserve, the finance sector, and the effects of QE. The whole thing has been a plot of the rent-seeking elites right from the start.

Nobody is making the distinction between the rent-seeking elites who get something for nothing; and honest main street wealth creators. The former overwhelmingly support the Democrats and the latter overwhelmingly support the Republicans. An increase in wealth among the honest main street wealth creators lifts all boats, because they make the wealth by means of mutual exchange in free, competitive markets.

It is the rent-seekers who get something for nothing, like interest income on newly created money, who amass their wealth at everyone else’s expense. The same goes for all speculative gainers in asset bubbles, another result of QE and other market distortions.

The worst asset market distortion of all is “smart growth” and anti-sprawl planning, which forces urban land values up tens of times or more and delivers massive fat zero-sum capital gains to the holders of the most valuable property, especially in CBD’s. Even the massive Federal subsidies of subway and commuter rail systems is a cunning ploy by CBD property owning rent-seekers to prop up their own dominance.

The Rockefellers were up to their eyeballs in advocacy of all this stuff right from the early 1970’s. Almost every influential “study” that claims that we must save the planet with more “compact city” and “transit oriented” planning, has Rockefeller funding in it. Soros is another source of funding of this activism.

Is it much of a stretch of the imagination that these people are smart enough about how urban land markets work, to have their own interests in mind?

It is also noticeable how the urban economics profession has been progressively silenced on the once well-understood theoretical interpretation of these things, as one chair of urban economics after another at Universities has become funded by “big property” interests.

bigjulie

Why are you slamming “Queer Entities” and “Certified Bank Deposits”? What do they have to do with anything?

philbest

Are you sure you are replying to the right comment on the right thread? I can’t see any connection between what you ask, and what I said.

philbest

Are you sure you are replying to the right comment on the right thread? I can’t see any connection between what you ask, and what I said.

objectivefactsmatter

“I have not read anything from the GOP on how they plan to fix the many problems caused by the increased suction of wealth ever upwards.”

Please explain the problem more clearly and then I can tell you the solution. It probably involves a little effort on the part of those that envy the money.

BagLady

Well, there’s your medical system for a start. Never the envy of the world. How’s about your education. Never the envy of the world. Not sure how you’re doing on the housing front. I see in the UK the government has bent over backwards to promote ‘buy to let’ home ownership (the irrelevant middleman introduced to drive up rents and drain the taxpayer funded welfare fund).

lyndaaquarius

what’s with the “your”? What’s your nationality?

notme123

what about other dem/leftist billionares, not just bloomberg

Daniel Greenfield

I mention a few others as well.

BagLady

The choice not to report this reveals that the biggest problem with
politics isn’t the undue influence of money, but the undue influence of
media.

and who controls the media if not the billionaires?

There is a case to be made for moving money out of politics, but Reid is the worst possible politician to make it.

There is an HUGE case to be made for moving money out of politics… if you want to continue to call yourselves a ‘democracy,’ that is.

The whole election process resembles a grotesque TV show with the players’ acting abilities judged daily via the media. The cost of this extravaganza means that only the chosen few (2) will have enough backing to get to the finals.

You get what you pay for: Obama or Hockey Mom. Won’t make any difference to the outcome. Koch or Soros. The choice is ‘Joyce’ as ‘we’ used to say.

http://www.clarespark.com/ Clare Spark

That is just a nonsensical claim. The viewing audience determines what gets on the air, and what is censored. So mass media have generally been populist, appealing to ordinary people and their resentments and secret longings and conflicts. See http://clarespark.com/2014/03/24/the-good-wife-and-bad-timing/. “The Good Wife and bad timing.”

Daniel Greenfield

That was in the past. It’s not about the viewing audience, it’s about the chosen ad demo which is upscale young people, liberal yuppies.

MLCBLOG

Yup. Times have changed. You gotta ‘splain things to people. I have observed a sea wave change since I was a child from actual journalism and neutral reporting of news, especially world events, to now what we have which is pure propaganda by the left as opposed to feeble and sometimes valiant attempts here and there of honest, valuable reporting.

joshuasweet

at leas the republicans funding is a list of Americans and not like the democrats a list of foreigners like Soros or the Chines government

nimbii

Let’s not forget that Vladimir Putin is the 8th richest person in the world. He’s richer than Soros. Gee, how could that have happened???? What could he be influencing?

MLCBLOG

Wow!! very interesting.

nimbii

Check the 8th richest, but I am pretty sure he’s richer than Soros.

nimbii

Call me paranoid, but just when we think they’ll run out of bull, a miracle will happen and the MSM will spin up an October surprise.

Daniel Greenfield

more than one

http://tinatrent.com/ Tina Trent

Right, but . . . the Koch brothers are pitting CATO against the Tea Party by using AFP to get the grassroots to sit down and shut up about amnesty, which they support through other groups, while lying through AFP.

It’s horribly sleazy.

This is important. They don’t deserve the abuse from the left, but they deserve it from the right, where they send operatives out to silence dissenting voices on illegal immigration.

Donald J DaCosta

Like Obama and many other politicos and their supporters on the left, Reid believes, with good reason, that the low information voter will buy his histrionic condemnations of the rich and their financial support for inherently evil Republicans. The reputations of the latter two have already been tossed in the toilet by their fallacious ruminations.

nomoretraitors

Every time I think I can’t get more disgusted by Harry Reid…..

“I believe I am on the side of the American people”
HARRY, YOU NEITHER KNOW NOR CARE ABOUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

nomoretraitors

“I’m not afraid of the Koch brothers”

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

truebearing

That Reid’s abject stupidity and hypocrisy can continue is an indictment of a media that refuses to report the truth. The mission of our media is no longer reporting the facts but instead, dedicated political obscurantism. It isn’t a coincidental obscurantism either. Media Matters dissemenates the talking points and the media goose steps in unison.

Not only do the retrogressive Obscurers in the media fail to report the money behind Reid and his ilk, they invariably fail to fairly and accurately represent what the Koch brothers are supporting ideologically. They frame it as “buying politicians” when what the Koch’s are really doing is supporting politicians who would actually do something to stop the corruption of our elections by power-mad billionaires, ie. George Soros, Bloomberg, et al. If stopping billionaires from having undo influence was something the media supported, they would be applauding the Koch brothers, but the opposite is the truth. The media has already been bought and paid for by leftist tyrants, which means that either the Kochs of the world join the fray and help oppose the Left, or there will be little chance of saving the country from communism. The Obscurers will never admit that though. They like the sound of the silver jingling in their pockets.

A high percentage of our media members should be given The Blindfold and Cigarette Award for their dedication to journalistic treason.

Ellman48

‘Obscurantism’ is an excellent choice of words. It describes this regime’s primary strategy, as far removed from ‘transparency’ as the Earth is from Pluto. For 5 years Reid, Pelosi, Obama and their media lap dogs have kept the truth from the American people and replaced it with brazen lies and propaganda. Unlike any President before and probably after him, Obama has practiced obscurantism unabated virtually every day since being elected in 2008. He earned the appellation ‘Lyin King’ for good reason. A people informed with the truth would be marching on Washington demanding impeachment, if not a firing squad.

Lanna

If you look at all the underhanded tactics that Democrats have used to win elections, including trying to allow people to vote without IDs or drivers licenses, you finally say…..These Democrats have nothing to offer hard working, honest Americans. The Koch Brothers are probably the last gasp to the dems…the Left has used everything else on the American people from Obama care, to spying, targeting conservative groups who are trying to implement an honest and less invasive form of Government, Demonizing Conservative women calling them derogatory names, ignoring the Constitution that should be upheld, not trashed as the present administration is doing..and then look at the Senate, how dinji Harry had to change the rules, and then may have to live by his own rules if the Republicans take back the senate…All in all folks their record is quite clear and shows they will do anything to win, whether by unsavory practices, deceptions, or just plain bad government policies that are by forced coercion…..The slogan..what goes around comes around is relevant here!

Ellman48

“I’m not afraid of the Koch brothers,” Reid boasted. Instead Reid is afraid of Michael Bloomberg.”

If he is not afraid of the Koch brothers why does he spend so much time denouncing and slandering them? Harry Reid is a disgrace. Between him, Pelosi and Obama the American people have been inundated with so many lies that if they were manure we would be in it up to our necks.